21 SEPTEMBER – 16 OCTOBER

Twenty-five years ago, in September 1982, Storefront’s first public event got underway in its original Prince Street location. Performance A-Z, organized by the gallery’s founders Kyong Park and R L Seltman, and artist Arleen Schloss, was a 26-day sequence of performances by New York-based artists. Each of the 26 performers was allocated one evening slot. The event became a manifesto for the gallery’s future programming: as Kyong Park wrote in his introduction, “Storefront supports the idea that art and design have the potential and responsibility to affect public policies which influence the quality of life and the future of all cities.”

In late September 2007, Storefront celebrated its 25th anniversary with a new edition of its first event. Entitled Performance Z-A, this 26-day celebration was hosted in Petrosino Park, adjacent to Storefront, in a specially built pavilion designed by Korean architect Minsuk Cho. 

Organized by the three directors who have led Storefront over the past 25 years (Kyong Park, Sarah Herda and Joseph Grima), Performance Z-A was an inclusive event involving not only performance artists but also representatives of all the disciplines that have participated in Storefront’s program in the past decades: architects, artists, writers, researchers, filmmakers, photographers, musicians and more. For 26 days, from September 21 to October 16, 2007, the protagonists of Storefront’s past, present and future hosted 26 evening events including performances, concerts, open discussions, film screenings and interviews.

Notes

Anselm Franke is a curator and writer based in Antwerp and Berlin. He is currently the Artistic Director of Extra City Center for Contemporary Art in Antwerp. He was recently announced as co-curator of the forthcoming Manifesta 7, the European Biennial of Contemporary art, hosted in different location every two years. Franke, who curated An Uneven Exchange of Power at Storefront in 2004, will present the program-in-progress of the biennial and discuss the opportunities and limitations of this roving exhibition format in the wake of the controversial cancellation of Manifesta 6.

Pedro Reyes will present footage from "Palas Por Pistolas", a project that involved a voluntary donation of weapons from civilians in the city of Culiacan in Western Mexico. This city suffers the highest rate of deaths by firearms. For this project 1650 arms have been collected. The footage shows the destruction of these arms that will be melted and casted into farming tools for a foresting campaign and educational purposes. After the film, there will be a discussion about the theories of social scientist Jacob Levy Moreno who in the nineteen-forties proposed Sociatry as field of research and a set of practices aimed to heal society.

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